Caring Well: Religion, Narrative, and Health Care Ethics

by David H. Smith (Editor)

Overview

The complexities of healthcare situations often include the religious commitments of patients. They should include those of healthcare professionals as well. In this fresh approach to problems in medical ethics, contributors provide case studies, interviews, and personal narratives that help ethicists listen more attentively and offer wiser critiques of the moral issues involved.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780664222567
Publisher:	Westminster John Knox Press
Publication date:	09/01/2000
Edition description:	1ST ED,
Pages:	276
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

David H. Smith is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Religious Studies at Indiana University. He is the author of several books, including Health and Medicine in the Anglican Tradition and Entrusted: The Moral Responsibilities of Trustees.

Table of Contents

	Contributors	vii
	Editor's Acknowledgments	viii
	Introduction: The Importance of Listening and the Pertinence of Religion	1
Part 1.	Ways of Listening
1.	Religion, Ethics, and Clinical Immersion: An Appraisal of Three Pioneers	17
2.	The Bios of Bioethics and the Bios of Autobiography	43
3.	Adequate Images and Evil Imaginations: Ethnography, Ethics, and the End of Life	64
Part 2.	The Practice of Caregiving: Caring for Children
4.	"It's What Pediatricians Are Supposed to Do"	89
5.	Ethics, Faith, and Healing: Jewish Physicians Reflect on Medical Practice	117
Part 3.	Coincidence/Conflict Between Commitments: Transplantation
6.	Organ Transplants: Death, Dis-organ-ization, and the Need for Religious Ritual	147
7.	Giving in Grief: Perspectives of Hospital Chaplains on Organ Donation	170
Part 4.	Adults at the End of Life
8.	Boundary Crossings: The Ethical Terrain of Professional Life in Hospice Care	201
9.	Professional Commitment to Personal Care: Nurses' Commitments in Care for the Dying	221
10.	"Apart and Not a Part": Death and Dignity	239
	Notes	255
	Author Index	275